


When It Snows

by MaybeMayura



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: GabeNath Book and Art Club Server, More snow, Prompt night, Snow, Snowball Fight, Snowed In, Snowmageddon, Survival, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Unbeta'd, by the fire, cabin in the woods, come on it's western new york there's lake-effect snow, endless snow, have fun with my words!, love y'all, snowpocalypse, unedited, winter prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeMayura/pseuds/MaybeMayura
Summary: ...It Pours.One shot. Nathalie and Gabriel have planned to take a short excursion overseas in search of a new miraculous, but little do they know the weather has different plans…cue shenanigans, drama, and utter survival for two city-slickers who've never had to build a fire in their lives.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42
Collections: GabeNath Book Club and Art Club Server





	When It Snows

“Don’t worry, Adrien. It will only be for a few days.” Nathalie shouldered her pack in the foyer of the Agreste Mansion. “We’ll be back in time for Christmas.”

Adrien nodded. “Okay...what did you say this was for, anyway?” 

Nathalie shifted. “A business opportunity for your father. Who, speaking of which, should be down here by now.” 

Adrien started to say something else, but footsteps on the stairs behind them caught their attention. Gabriel was descending, struggling with an overstuffed duffel. Nathalie raised her eyebrows, and Adrien covered his mouth with his hand to hide his amusement at the obvious manifestation of his father’s inability to pack a bag. 

“Nathalie, when is our flight?” the man said, slightly out of breath. 

“We have plenty of time, sir.” She eyed the bursting duffel. “We’ll only be gone for three days, sir.” He shot her a look, but continued out the front door to the waiting car. 

“Goodbye.” Nathalie ruffled Adrien’s hair. “Remember to text me if you need anything, and don’t forget I put Sabine Cheng’s number in your phone, and you know Simon’s-” 

Adrien grinned. “I’ll be fine. You guys have a nice trip!” He waved and shut the door as she started down the stairs to the car. 

_ He will be,  _ Nathalie thought to herself. There were other, bigger things to worry about. 

* * *

Gabriel had asked Nathalie to plan a trip just a few weeks prior after having run across information suggesting there was a wolf miraculous to be found in the Northeast United States. Which was why, in mid-December, she found herself embarking on what would either be the smoothest or most difficult getaway trip she had ever had. It was short in duration, but there was no telling what sort of stress her boss would stir up when he was hunting for magical jewels. At least it would be a quiet respite from the city, and the closest thing to a vacation she had had in years. 

Their flight landed outside New York City at eight in the morning, and after that it was a six hour drive through increasingly remote country until they pulled into the sleepy little town of Stockton in the western part of the state. 

“Good god, I never figured America could be so... _ empty, _ Gabriel remarked. He got out of the car, groaning as he disentangled his long legs. 

“You’d hate the Midwest, then,” Nathalie remarked from the driver’s side. She dug in her bag for the keys to the cabin they would call home for the next two days. It was a tiny thing of reddish log, with a decent sized front porch, tucked into a clearing of trees up a bumpy gravel driveway. Definitely not Gabriel’s normal level of comfort, but this pickings were slim in this rural area of the country. 

She stepped out of the car and looked up at the sky. The air was chill and clean, with an undercurrent of moisture in it, and the flat grey clouds hung low in the sky. Her shoes crunched in a thin patch of snow, leftover from the latest winter storm. 

“Nathalie?” Gabriel was hauling his bag up the steps. “Where are the keys?” His voice jerked her from her thoughts and she went to open the door. 

They set their things down in the front room. The living room and compact kitchen flowed into one another, housing a large brick fireplace, two sat-out couches facing a television stand, and a mounted deer head on the wall between the windows. A sliding door led out to the back deck. Down the hall there were two bedrooms and a bathroom, which Nathalie knew from the rental site. The floors were a beautiful hardwood, smoothed from years of occupants. 

Gabriel rubbed his arms, staring at the deer head. “It’s cold in here.” 

“Well, turn on the thermostat, then,” Nathalie replied as she flicked on the television and changed it to a weather station. Gabriel looked at her and over at the white dial on the wall and back to her, deciding he may as well give it a go. 

_ “...heavy precipitation expected through this evening into the night,” _ the forecaster was saying. Nathalie squinted at the map the man was gesturing to. She wasn’t quite sure where they were in the projected storm system, but it looked as if they would be getting snow soon. She zipped her coat back up. 

“I’m thinking I’ll head back into town and grab some groceries,” she said in Gabriel’s direction. 

“Hm?” he replied, still fiddling with the thermostat. “Oh, I’m not sure if that’s necessary.” 

“Well, I’m going. Better safe than sorry,” she said, and went back to the car. 

* * *

Gabriel didn’t worry when she hadn’t returned in an hour. He spent the time on one of the couches with the TV on in the background, combing through articles on his tablet about the local mining site where the miraculous was supposedly hidden. There was no way to know for sure, but supposedly it had been tucked away by its keeper to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. He knew it wasn’t one of those he most desired, but any increase in power was better than none. 

After two hours, though, he felt uneasy. The town was not that far away. He stood and pushed back the curtains, and was shocked to see a thick coating of white on the ground, the snow falling rapidly in thick clumps. The sky was quite dark for four in the afternoon, and his breath fogged the window pane. He pulled out his phone and tried to call her, but the signal was weak in the weather and refused to go through. 

Twenty more minutes passed before he finally heard an engine and saw the car headlights heading up the slope of the driveway--or where he assumed the driveway was. The wheels spun two rotations before moving enough snow to find purchase on the gravel and lurch to a stop. He felt relieved as he saw Nathalie’s dark form hopping out and pulling her purchases from the backseat. She bent her head into the thick snowfall and he leapt to open the door for her. 

She stumbled across the threshold, two full plastic bags hanging from each arm. 

“What?” She gasped, setting the bags on the floor and wiping melting snow from her nose. 

“What?” 

“You have a weird expression. Shut the door, you’re letting the heat out.” 

Gabriel did. He was not about to admit that he had been worried about her. “It’s nothing.” 

Nathalie shed her soaked suit jacket and hung it on a hook by the door, slipping out of her shoes. “I suppose we should have brought actual winter gear,” she mused, then shivered and rubbed her arms. “The roads were a mess, and the stores nearly empty. I got us some food staples, but it appears the locals beat us in terms of storm prep.” 

Gabriel nodded, his eyes flicking to her wet bangs plastered against her forehead and her standing there in her red turtleneck. He had never seen Nathalie dressed anything but impeccably. 

She moved to start putting things away in the fridge, and he wordlessly switched the station back to the weather.

“Okay, so we have bread and sandwich materials, and some canned goods we can use for soup...I didn’t manage to snag much from the ready-made section of the store...are there any kitchen supplies in these cabinets?” She started opening and closing cabinet doors briskly. 

“Nathalie.” 

“Oh, here are the plates and glasses. And a saucepan, that will come in handy-”

“Nathalie.”

“...I wish I had gotten hand soap...oh, hm?” 

“They’re calling for three feet of snow over the next four days.” 

She stopped. Even from behind, he could see her thinking, doing the mental conversion to meters. 

“That’s...a lot.” 

The power flickered, and both of them glanced up at the overhead lights and then at each other. 

It appeared they would be staying longer than they wanted, whether they liked it or not.    


* * *

Despite a rising unease between the both of them, the evening passed relatively uneventfully. Nathalie brought together some soup with some of the vegetables and other materials she had bought in town. Gabriel had no clue what was in it or how she did it, but it smelled delicious. He hadn’t known Nathalie could cook. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t sure how she lived when she wasn’t under his employ from nine to five. He assumed she had an apartment somewhere in the city, and lived alone. Right now, however, she stood at the kitchen stove in socks and her turtleneck, humming something to herself she thought he couldn’t hear. Her hair had been wrangled back into its customary bun, though slightly frizzy after drying out in the heat of the cabin. 

Dinner was a welcome break from frustration for him. The cabin had internet, but with the weather it was unreliable at best. His phone still stubbornly refused to catch anything more than a few meager bars of service. It made research and staying up to date on the rest of the world incredibly difficult. 

Not much was said over dinner. The power flickered a few more times as they ate before cutting out for a full minute, the cabin going silent as the ambient noise of the heating pump cut off. They paused in the dark to listen to the whistle of the wind around the corner of the house before it mercifully came back on. 

“I suppose we shouldn’t expect it to stay,” Nathalie said softly. 

“What do we do if it doesn’t?” 

“Build a fire, probably.” 

“Can you  _ do _ that?” 

She frowned and looked askance as she finished her soup and didn’t reply, getting up to set the bowl in the sink. She then ventured down the hall to check out the bedrooms, which neither of them had actually seen yet. He heard the floor creak under her footsteps as she went into one of the rooms, then the other, then back into the first. 

“I can’t believe this.” 

“What is it?” He called as she came back into view. 

“Only  _ one  _ of these has a bed!” 

“You’re kidding.” He deposited his own dish in the sink before hastily following her down the hall. She was right. One of the bedrooms housed a queen-sized bed. The other had a bed frame. Taped to it was a note that read _“Roof leak ruined mattress, replacement soon."_ True to its word, a bucket with a centimeter of water in the bottom sat in the middle of the frame. 

Nathalie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, this is just fantastic. I’m going to have to have a word with the owner for not warning us-” 

At that very moment, the power went out for good. Nathalie threw up her hands. “Of all the things I needed right now…!” She felt along the wall and exited the room. 

Gabriel stood there in the dark, puzzled. They knew the power was going to go out. So why was she so upset? His eyes adjusted so he could see the ghostly falling snow out the window. He watched it for a moment before heading out into the main room. 

He could see her dark form sitting motionless on the end of one of the couches. The television was dead, the house silent. He could see the outline of the mounted deer head eyeing him. 

“I know you’re there,” she mumbled. 

“You knew the power was going to go out.”

“I suppose.” 

He sighed and went to sit on the other end of the couch. This was awkward and difficult, but he found himself oddly calm. 

“What’s wrong.” 

It took a minute before she answered. She seemed to be struggling with the words. “It’s just...I just hoped nothing extraordinary was going to happen. That it was going to be a break from the usual work, a vacation. But here we are, stranded in the middle of a blizzard in a house with no heat and no access to the outside world, and…I don’t know what to do.”

Gabriel couldn’t see her face, and he supposed she was grateful for it, because her voice was smaller than he usually knew it as. It struck him that it was usually her who stayed calm while he was frustrated and upset, and that was why it felt so strange.

“I see.”

Her voice rose a bit. “And it doesn’t help that I’ve been doing everything, so far. I went to the store, put the groceries away, made dinner. I know we’re not exactly on equal pay grades, but this is no longer a work situation...” 

The truth of it stung a bit, but Gabriel knew exactly what she meant. “I suppose I could...help.” 

She sighed. “How.” 

“Well, for one, there’s firewood stacked against the house. I saw it out the window when we were in that back bedroom.” 

“Really?” Her voice was returning to its normal tone, and she turned around. “Well, that works out. Do you think you could bring some in? We’ll start to lose heat fast.”

Gabriel pulled on his coat and exited the back door to retrieve some wood. The snow was coming down as thickly as ever, and he felt it melting into his hair as it met the heat of his head. He pulled up a corner of the tarp covering the stack and clumsily loaded his arms with split logs. When he returned, Nathalie was rifling through the kitchen cabinets for a lighter while the sink ran, filling all the available containers with water. 

Between the two of them, they managed to get the wood stacked in the fireplace. It took several tries, but with the aid of a few paper towels sprinkled with kitchen oil, they managed to get it to catch. They sat on the floor in front of it for a few minutes, watching the orange flames stretch taller and feeling the heat they put out. 

“Not bad for two city-dwellers,” Gabriel mused. Nathalie looked over at him, her chin resting on her knees, and smiled for the first time he could remember since arriving. It took him a moment to remember to smile back, and then they returned to watching the fire. 

Neither of them knew what time it was, so when they found themselves tired after the events of the day, they began drifting towards bed. With that came renewed tension as the problem of the single mattress again reared its head. 

“You take it,” Nathalie said. “I can sleep on the floor.” 

“No, you,” Gabriel replied, mildly annoyed that since she had selflessly offered, he needed to do the same. 

“You’re paying for it.” 

“And you’re...shivering,” Gabriel said in realization, because she was. She held a lit candle in her hand for some illumination--another spectacular yield from the kitchen drawers--and the flame was violently shaking along with the rest of her body. The bedrooms had definitely cooled since the heat had gone off, and the warmth of the hearth did not reach so far back. 

He reached for it. “Let me have that. You’ll light the whole place on fire,” he said at her look, but she handed it to him. Her hands were ice cold. In surprise, he caught one before she could take it back.

“Nathalie. What the-” 

“I have poor c-circulation,” she muttered, slipping her fingers from his. She grabbed her bag and went to shut herself in the bathroom, and he heard the water start to run. 

When she came back, he had pulled all the blankets he could find out of the linen closet and was attempting to make something of a mattress pad out of them on the floor in the light of the candle.

“I ran the s-shower until the water p-pressure weakened, so the bathtub is mostly f-full. Don’t use water i-if you c-can avoid it.” Gabriel nodded and stared at his makeshift sleeping area. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, he could tell. He heard the bed depress more than he saw her climb in, and settled down on the floor, trying to find a position that both didn’t grind his hips into the hardwood and blocked the draft from the door. Above him came a continual muffled chattering of teeth. 

After a few minutes, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to block it out in order to sleep. “Good god, Nathalie,” he said as he gathered up his blankets. “Move over, if you will.” 

“S-sir-” 

“Like you said, this is no longer a work situation.” 

She shifted, and he took a side of the bed. They turned so their backs were to each other, not touching, but twice the blankets and twice the body heat meant that gradually, the bed stopped shaking. 

_ Finally,  _ Gabriel thought to himself as he drifted off. 

* * *

_ “It’s been four days. We are running out of food and water. My hairspray is getting low-”  _

“Gabriel, it’s barely been twenty-four hours. You’re fine.” Nathalie was plating some chips and a ham sandwich at the counter. He stood at the window, speaking into the voice recorder on his phone as he watched the snow pile higher and higher in the grey daylight. Her derisive tone was not particularly helpful, but he supposed he deserved it.

They had begun to work out a tentative system. Gabriel would bring in firewood, Nathalie would manage the food and water. They wore their coats inside, and often blankets, too, since they lacked the required layers. Their phones were still useless, and they wanted to conserve energy as it was. Nathalie had attempted to message Adrien, but between the storm and their temporary SIM cards it was getting nowhere. 

Gabriel continued to marvel at how different she was in this context, as she had never let him see her this way before. She had only packed work clothes, but her hair fell loose around her shoulders or was contained to a ponytail. He discovered that the ends curled, and he almost wanted to touch it just to know what it would feel like. But even though it was not a work situation, he knew it would still be extremely out of place. He just didn’t know where the thought had come from. 

They discovered that the television stand held a trove of board games and set about working their way through them, sitting on the floor close to the fire. Nathalie beat him in cards and checkers, and he gambled all of his potato chips away in poker, but Gabriel found himself quite content to putter away at the thousand piece puzzle. 

“Why do you like this?” Nathalie had said ten minutes into the endeavor. “It’s not as fun as games. You’re just making a picture.” 

“It’s the art, I suppose,” Gabriel replied, snapping in another edge piece. "Why do you like games? They end pretty quickly." He looked up when she didn't reply. She was pacing around the kitchen island, a blanket across her shoulders like a cape trailing behind her. She brought her hands out from under it and blew on them in a feeble attempt to warm them up. 

Gabriel stood and approached her in his own blanket cape. “Hands,” he said, holding his out palms-up. She looked at him in confusion and gingerly placed them on top of his. He folded his closed so they wrapped around hers. She looked down at them and up at him again. 

“How are you this warm?” 

“I’m a warm person.” They stood like that for a minute until she looked away. He could swear he caught a hint of pink in her cheeks, but it could have been a trick of the light. 

* * *

The snow kept falling as their supplies slowly dwindled. It wore on both of their minds. They were down to the ends of the bread and sandwich supplies. The wood pile was getting low, but the one saving grace about the piling snow was that it insulated the walls on the windward side of the cabin, meaning the heat stayed slightly longer. 

“I have an idea,” Nathalie said as she pondered their last pot of water. 

“I’m willing to hear it,” Gabriel replied, and she smiled to herself. 

“Snow is water. How about we try melting it?” 

“Sounds good to me,” he said, and that became part of his share of the tasks. He had never needed to learn how to use a stove, much less cook with an open fire, but one couldn’t burn water. 

“I have an idea,” he said later that afternoon after Nathalie beat him at checkers for the fifth time that day. 

“I wonder what it could be?” she replied, and he smiled. “Trees are wood, right? I could...go get some more.” 

“How do you think you’re going to do that?” 

“I have my miraculous.” 

All the light left her eyes at the reminder of why they were really there, that there existed a world outside the survival snow globe they currently inhabited. 

“I suppose.” An awkward beat of silence sat between them. 

“I don’t have to,” he said regretfully. “We aren’t really low anyway.” 

“No, go ahead.” She got up and went to look in the fridge, but he knew she already knew what was in it.

He sighed. “Nooroo, dark wings rise,” he said, and suddenly Hawk Moth stood in his place. He instantly felt invigorated with warmth and strength. The only problem was that Nathalie wouldn’t look at him. 

_ Well, that’s her problem!  _ He thought with irritation as he ducked out the back door. The feeling only increased as he discovered that finding suitable firewood was more difficult than it seemed. For one, the snow inhibited his progress. Two, trees were surprisingly sturdy, and his rapier did minimal damage to his first targets. Anything on the ground would have been invisible and thoroughly soaked, and even Gabriel knew wet wood wouldn’t burn. 

He finally found one spear that looked as if it had been dead for some time, a tree trunk that rose twice his height out of the snow but wasn’t too thick. He hacked at the base of it with his sword and managed to fell it and carry it away. Even for Hawk Moth, it was awfully heavy. He tried to follow his footsteps back to the cabin, but discovered they were starting to fill with snow. Fear gripped his heart. Would he be lost in the woods? Wait, no, there was the trail again. The light was dimming, and he hurried as fast as he could with his cargo. 

He laid it along the back of the house on top of the woodpile before going to head inside. On the deck he paused, remembering Nathalie’s reaction to the miraculous earlier. 

“Dark wings, fall,” he muttered, and instantly was chilled through as his transformation left him. He gathered up some wood so he wouldn’t have to venture out later and rapped on the door for her to let him in. 

She seemed more relaxed as he told her about what he had found. 

“...and the snow was so thick, I nearly lost the trail on the way back-- _ ouch!”  _ he hissed, and dropped the wood. 

“What? What’s wrong?” 

“Splinter,” he replied. 

“Let me see.” He held out his palm to show her. “Oh, I can take that out. Hold on.” 

“Take...take it out?” he asked, but her and her blanket-cape had disappeared down the hall to the bathroom. He could never remember having gotten a splinter before.

When she came back, she held some tweezers and a pin. “Sit,” she said, pushing him onto the couch. 

“What are you doing with that,” he swallowed nervously at the pin making its way towards his palm. 

“Relax. I’ve done it for Adrien more than once.” 

“I’m just going to close my eyes.” 

Some uncomfortable minutes of poking later and he heard her exclaim “ _ Got it!”,  _ and he opened his eyes to her holding the offending twig in the tweezers and grinning. 

“See, it wasn’t so bad.” 

“Good god, Nathalie.” 

* * *

The next day they awoke, disoriented and closer together than they had fallen asleep, for sunlight was streaming into the room. Nathalie got up and pushed back the curtains to reveal a sparkling undiluted expanse of white as high as the windows. 

“Wow. It’s beautiful,” She breathed. Gabriel watched her standing there, trying to figure out why he was thinking the same thing. 

“What do you say we go outside and get some sunlight, while it lasts?” 

  
“I’d say that’s a good idea. We can try and clean off the car while we’re at it. You can do the driveway.” 

They donned their coats and blankets and struggled outside in the thigh-high drifts. It was certainly chilly out, but the sun made it feel decidedly less cold. Nathalie, armed with a broom, started attacking the abominable mound that was the car as best she could. Gabriel held his phone to the sky.

“Nathalie! Oh, heavens, it’s a miracle! I have  _ service!”  _

She laughed. “Do us all a favor and text your son. He’s probably worried sick.” To her surprise, he didn’t object. 

Moving that much snow without the proper tools was harder work than Nathalie had done in a long time. It was wet and heavy and the broom was not especially effective, but she eventually got the car clear enough to see inside the windows. She paused, panting, her blood warm and wondered where Gabriel had gotten off to. 

_ Poof.  _ Something hit the back of her head and sprayed powdery white all over the vehicle. 

_ “Gabriel!”  _ She yelled in indignation, and immediately ducked as she turned to avoid another snowball flying past her head.  _ Where were they coming from? _ “ You’re going to ruin the car again!” A third flew wide and she narrowed her eyes as she spotted a head of white-blonde hair disappearing behind a pile of snow off the driveway. She grinned to herself and picked up a handful of snow, packing it together, and waited. 

Confused as to why he couldn’t hear her, Gabriel’s face peeked out from behind the drift. 

_ Wham.  _ It was a perfect shot. Nathalie doubled over in laughter at his spluttering and wiping the snow from his nose. “It appears nobody taught you how to play  _ fair,  _ Miss Sancoeur,” he replied devilishly, and began to fire snowballs at her from his pre-prepared stash. “I am the snow king! You cannot challenge my snow castle!” Nathalie put up her arms at the onslaught, laughing and diving for cover behind a pile opposite him. It devolved into a full-out battle, snowballs flying across the no-man’s-land of the driveway and squealing whenever one of them found their mark. It felt good to forget about everything and get to have honest-to-goodness  _ fun  _ for a change.

Their war went on for several minutes until the two of them were too exhausted and breathless and soaked to go on. Gabriel looked at her rosy face and laughing eyes and felt himself smiling too, because she was happy, and he had made her happy. 

A single snowflake fell from the sky and landed on Nathalie’s nose. More followed, cascading in silent droves as the sun went back behind a cloud. Her smile faded. “I suppose it was too much to hope for, that it had stopped completely,” she said, and shivered in her damp coat. 

Gabriel glared at the clouds. “Let’s go back inside,” he said, and put a hand on her shoulder as they floundered back towards the front door. 

* * *

For the remainder of the evening, Nathalie was restless. Gabriel watched as she made loop after loop around the living room before coming to a pause at one of the front windows, the snow falling thickly again. “We need more supplies. I need to go get some. Before it gets too bad again.” 

“Don’t. You’ll make yourself sick if you go out there. I don’t think I have to remind you of the effects of the miraculous…”

She scrunched up her face and turned to him. “You know I’d risk anything for you.” 

The silent implications hung in the air. 

“I don’t want you to do that anymore.” 

She stepped back and shook her head. “Gabriel, no. Don’t tell me that.” He wondered when she had stopped calling him ‘sir.’ “You know when we return, when we go back home, that everything will be normal again, right? You’ll still be Hawk Moth, you’ll still be hunting the miraculous to bring back Emilie. This doesn’t change anything.” Her voice cracked. She attempted to mask it by blowing on her hands again. He reached for them, but she jerked away. “No! No, don’t.” 

“Nathalie, please-” 

“Don’t. Please don’t, I’m… I need some space.” 

His hands dropped to his side helplessly. There was precious little of that in this tiny cabin that he had grown admittedly fond of. “Fine.” He walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. What had he done wrong? And why was he struggling with this feeling, the one that said ‘I don’t want to bring Emilie back’? It was new and strange, but at the same time he suspected it had been building for some time. 

* * *

He must have fallen asleep, for when he regained consciousness the sky was darker. Immediately, he felt something was off. He leapt out of bed and went to the main room. Nathalie wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the bathroom, or even the empty bedroom. His senses kicked into overdrive, and he rushed to the window. The car was missing, and the spot it had sat in had already filled with an inch of snow, meaning she had been gone for some time. 

Gabriel growled and raked his fingers through his hair. How could he have been so stupid, to fall asleep? Who knows where she was now, in what sort of trouble, and there was no way he could find her. 

...Unless. 

“Nooroo, dark wings rise!” Hawk Moth stood at the window and closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind across the tiny town as far as he could. He couldn’t sense her. 

_ Damn it, damn it… _ he muttered, flinging open the front door. The wind immediately smacked him in the face, but he didn’t feel the chill as he started out following the tracks of the car as best he could. They were hard to see in the weather, and the going was tough. Every so often, he would reach out again to see if he could find her. 

On and on he trudged. There was no way to know how long, only an endless sea of white and trees and falling flakes that tricked his vision. Even the powers of the miraculous couldn’t keep out the chill forever. The temperature had dropped even more, and the cold and the damp seeped into his very bones. 

Until up ahead, he noticed something. The tree line was broken by a dark shape on the side of the road. Could it be the car? He broke into a jog as best he could, anxiety pooling in the pit of his stomach with every step. 

It was. The car had seemingly skidded into the ditch for reasons unclear, and the driver’s side was wedged deep in the snowdrift. 

And Nathalie...Nathalie was still inside. 

Gabriel’s heart beat horribly fast as he tugged on the door handle, but it was frozen shut. He rapped on the window and called her name, but she didn’t respond. She hadn’t moved. In wild fear, he drew his sword and used the hilt to smash the window. He kept hitting pieces out until no more jagged glass edges sat in the frame, and reached in and pulled her unconscious form out. 

Her lips were blue, and the tips of her fingers. It terrified him to his core, so much so that he cradled her to his chest and began to run against the wind all the way back to the cabin. 

He burst through the door and immediately stoked the fire as much as he could, setting . 

_ Please be okay, please be okay, _ came the repeating chorus in his head. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost her. The flames crackled to life, and he let go his transformation. 

What was one supposed to do for a person with potential hypothermia? There was one thing that he had read about in fictional books, and although he was too embarrassed to do it all the way, it might be the answer.

Flying to the bedroom he yanked all the covers off the bed they had shared and brought them in front of the fire. He removed his shirt and pants and hissed at the cool air on his skin, then set to work removing the frozen outer layers from Nathalie’s unconscious body. He hesitated only a moment before gathering her in his arms and wrapping them both in the blankets on the floor in front of the fire. Her skin was icy cold against his, and it was entirely terrifying. 

He pressed his ear to her chest, hoping to hear her heartbeat, and held his breath. 

_ Ba-thump….ba-thump….ba-thump…. _

Yes! It was slow, but it was there. He shifted so he could rub some warmth into her frigid hands. Was that color returning to her fingernails? He blew her bangs back with a warm breath and her eyelids fluttered. 

A burst of hysterical laughter rose in Gabriel’s throat, and her brow creased the slightest bit. “ _ Gabriel...stop…”  _ her voice was hoarse. 

“No, ha, you see! I’m not completely useless! Haha.” 

“What...are you talking about.” She opened her eyes. “Why are we...oh my god.” 

“No! No. We’re not naked. I can explain…” He would have, but she started to shiver, first slowly and then increasingly violently. 

“S-so...c-c-cold…” 

Gabriel wrapped both of his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could. He didn’t ever want to let go. 

* * *

Nathalie would later explain that she had been on her way back when she swerved to avoid a collision with a deer. The next thing she knew, the car was in a ditch, and after that she knew nothing. 

Gabriel learned of this in between helping her finish a bowl of soup, since her hands were shaking too hard to hold the spoon. He didn’t want to leave her alone to go retrieve the supplies still locked in the car, but she assured him she wouldn’t die in the next thirty minutes and that it would be alright to go. In the end, it was the return of her snark that actually convinced him. 

The snow seemed to be thinning. The flakes were smaller and the clouds lighter. The next morning they awoke tangled together in bed and realized the power had come back on. The sun came out again, and this time it seemed there to stay. 

As soon as the roads were clear enough they hastily packed up and headed back across the state without the miraculous, fearful of another impending band of storms. Hawk Moth pushed the car out of the ditch, and Nathalie had taped a section of plastic over the pulverized passenger window, marveling at how much better they had learned to work as a team. 

But the farther from their snowy cabin they got, the more distant it was. The plane ride back to Paris was in mostly awkward silence, broken only by an occasional quiet cough from Nathalie. Gabriel seemed to be far off in his thoughts. The livelier man she had come to like was melting away along with the snow. 

It was late on Christmas Eve by the time they got home, so they assumed Adrien would be asleep. As they set down their bags in the foyer, Nathalie turned and coughed hard into her elbow. 

“You don’t seem well.” 

“I’m fine, sir.” 

“No, you’re not. I’ll be calling the doctor tomorrow. And please, don’t call me that anymore.” The softness in his tone made her look up. 

Gabriel had been thinking the entire way back. About cold sandwiches and splinters and Nathalie’s smile, the heat of her body sharing a bed at night. About snowball fights and checkers and the thought that if he didn’t ever see Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated, he’d be okay.

“About our conversation earlier. You’re wrong,” he started. 

“Pardon?” 

“Things  _ have _ changed.” 

It took a moment for the meaning to register in her mind. He took her hands in between his in the way they had grown accustomed to him doing. “Stay, won’t you?” 

“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in it. If the doctor is supposed to be here tomorrow, I might as well not go home just to have to make the trip back.” 

“No, I meant indeterminately.” 

“It would be like we were stranded again. Except by choice.” She looked into his face, and let out a wry laugh. “I never want to see that much snow again in my life.” 

Gabriel smiled, knowing that he’d do it again a hundred times if it meant she’d never leave.

Little did either of them know, Adrien sat at the top of the stairs, peeking out from between the railings with round eyes and wondering what could have possibly happened while they were away. 

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s my attempt at winter slice-of-life fic, from seasonal prompts on the GabeNath Book and Art Club discord server. It’s essentially unedited, so kudos to you if you managed to muddle through six thousand words of my overexplaining ass! 
> 
> Comments and feedback always welcome, and stay warm if you're in the Northern Hemisphere this winter season. :)


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